


Melinda May reminisces

by Bacner



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Avengers (Marvel Movies), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hydra (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Melinda May and her love-life, Melinda May reminisces, S.H.I.E.L.D. (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Some Spoilers, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24927709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: While she's captured by the Malicks in the 1970s, Melinda thinks about her past.
Relationships: Melinda May/Andrew Garner (one-sided), Melinda May/Phil Coulson (one-sided)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Melinda May reminisces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beckysue_bonner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckysue_bonner/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Marvel owns everybody.

Melinda May cannot sleep. Melinda May cannot breathe. Melinda May cannot really do anything. Coulson is gone.

Melinda May can think, and so she thinks, intently, about the past, about what could’ve been, and she knows only one thing for certain – ever since Coulson and his family connected with her family, back when they were only entering their teen years, she never really had any choice: Coulson led and she followed.

Oh, certainly, her parents did not approve – Phil was not Chinese enough for them, for one thing, and he was not a good boy either, (and they were not wrong on that one either). And Melinda… she did not disregard them – she did marry Andrew Gardner after all, and Andrew had been a good man, certainly a better man than what fate had dealt him, and that did include Melinda.

Melinda did try to be a good wife to him, even though it was not easy balancing both of her roles – a wife and an S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and by the time that Bahrain had come, she had failed both of them to everyone’s loss, to everyone that’d been involved, starting with Melinda herself. She tried to live a lie and it collapsed and all that she was left was a desk job in S.H.I.E.L.D. – some-thing that she did not want either, but… but she stayed. 

For once, it was not about Coulson, but about Melinda herself – Melinda was too scared to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. for good and go back to her family with her tail between her legs, metaphorically speaking. Instead, she stayed, and before long, the once-great Cavalry was forgotten.

Oh, sure, Natasha Romanoff did come over not too long after Bahrain with some tough love advice, but the two women were never close, and the great Black Widow had flaws of her own, and so that backfired on the latter, and instead of whatever was supposed to come out of Natasha Romanoff’s olive branch, the two female agents had a permanent falling-out instead.

These days, Natasha Romanoff is one of the Avengers, while Melinda May is not. But then again, ‘these days’ also didn’t have captain Rogers going back to the past to change it, so Melinda May has no idea as to who’s in the Avengers anymore, or if there are Avengers anymore to begin with. What she has an idea about is that she wants the future to change – the one that she and the others left behind, was simply bad.

…The Cavalry is self-aware enough to know that she should not have risen to Fury’s bait regarding the original Bus team, but instead left S.H.I.E.L.D. for certain, yet she did not. Why, she has no idea, but it probably had something to do with Morse – if Melinda didn’t agree to pilot the original Bus, then Morse certainly would’ve, and Melinda didn’t care much for the younger blonde either.

…Melinda does not care much for women period – Daisy, (or Skye), Jemma, Yo-Yo, they are all good friends of hers, really, but if given a choice, Melinda is not sure that she would have be-friended them. She remembers that she had joined Lance Hunter to rescue Morse from Ward and Palamas, but for Melinda, it was never about Morse, it was about Ward and Palamas instead: why was Palamas to succeed where Melinda herself had failed? She never loved the younger man in the same way that she had loved Coulson, but his rejection of her had hurt even before the actual Hydra uprising began, and so, when she saw a chance to get reckoning, she did, and Palamas died, and Ward died, and from his death arose the nightmare called Hive, and from that day on, nothing went right for Coulson’s S.H.I.E.L.D. – and now Coulson himself is dead, and Melinda constantly has to deal with his doppelgangers instead, and she hates it, and maybe that’s the point. That is her punishment for the life full of mistakes, of self-mistakes, for now Andrew is dead, and Coulson is dead, and Ward is dead, and she is alive, while wanting to die.

Ah well, who knows? Maybe after this entire mess with the Chronocons and the 1970s’ Hydra is done, the future slash the original time line will be changed enough for Melinda to have a brand-new life, free of Coulson, free of S.H.I.E.L.D., free of self-pity and loss – but Melinda doesn’t bet in it, too many things have gone wrong in her life and too often.

End


End file.
